It is sad that your son will miss out on the rest of Calc BC because the teacher has such an inflexible policy.
I understand the teacher wanting notice of an absence since it is quite common for parents to call a kid in for a test they are not ready for and the teacher has to work around that with a different version of the test etc. But giving a zero on a test is taking it too far in my opinion.
Why not dock him 30 points but let him get something in the grade book and stay in the class and keep learning? That would make too much sense.
Our local school treats all the “hard” AP classes this way. They are all weed-out classes. Calc BC, Chem, Phys C. Half the kids drop them early but the survivors usually get 5s on the AP tests and have a great foundation. Ironically most of them wind up at top tier schools that don’t take AP credits or they retake the classes anyway:(
Our AP classes are not treated as weed-out classes once students are vetted for the class (very rare for a student to drop), and I cannot imagine a student getting a zero without a chance to re-take for an unexcused absence when they forgot to call in, or for any one grade to be worth this much towards a final grade for the year. And yet, our students still seem to learn the material well and almost all get 4’s or 5’s on the AP tests. Go figure…
OP - Glad to hear everything worked out for your S wrt colleges, although sorry he couldn’t stay in the class and learn the material.
It’s dropped and the misery is over. Teacher even said he could stay in and audit for no grade the rest of the semester. Now it’s back to managing his senioritis. And lesson learned. No way I’m letting the next kid load up a senior schedule like this.
Our guidance counselor a are worthless. Each one has about 600 kids to manage and I’m not sure they are aware that are colleges outside of California.
“Our guidance counselor a are worthless. Each one has about 600 kids to manage and I’m not sure they are aware that are colleges outside of California”
Arent you glad you found the best guidance counselors that money can buy on CC?
This is what the bigger challenge is. I am quite sure that the senioritis along with the absence on test day did not help your son’s cause. A school will rescind for a bad case of senioritis.
I guess we had awesome guidance counselors and reasonable teachers…My DD had mono and the GC arranged for her not have to take the quarterly “finals” that quarter. Granted we had a 200-1 GC/Student ratio (Thanks NJ taxes!)
Yeah I don’t know why someone posted here that the colleges would likely say no and threatens rescission if they dropped. Our school monitors this very thing and in probably more than 95 percent of the cases the colleges are fine with dropping. In any event the lesson is NEVER Be afraid to ask and don’t believe everything you read on CC.
As for this “I understand the teacher wanting notice of an absence since it is quite common for parents to call a kid in for a test they are not ready for and the teacher has to work around that with a different version of the test etc.”
The parents I know would simply have called their kid out saying he was ill. No way for school to verify if a kid suddenly puked that morning and they can’t give negative consequences either.
Escalate to the school administration. You have little to lose at this point. Maybe Professor Hardliner can get a clue. I’m talking principal and beyond. Meanwhile, study for a C and hope for the best.
